Out of Order: Use the Stairs
by DinerGuy
Summary: When Shawn decided to investigate the old warehouse, he didn't expect to become trapped in its elevator.  Contains whump!


Originally written in March 2009.

Psych isn't mine; I'm just borrowing it for fun!

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It was dark.

That was the first thing Shawn noticed. The second was that he couldn't stand up. His leg hurt too much. He tried to roll to the side, but the ground began swaying, so he stopped.

Where was he? He searched his memory, trying to recall what had happened.

Nothing came to mind, but it may have had to do with the massive headache pounding his skull rather than his own ability to think.

He tried to ignore the bolts of pain shooting up his leg, but a groan still managed to make it past his lips.

He was feeling very dizzy. He closed his eyes against the nausea and soon felt himself sliding back into darkness.

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"Juliet!" Gus exclaimed as soon as she answered her phone. "I need your help."

"What's the matter?"

"Shawn's missing."

"Are you sure? Maybe he's just on one of his impromptu road trips or something."

"No, I'm sure. He wanted me to come with him to check out some old warehouse for that case you're working on. I told him I didn't have time to go, but he said he would do it himself instead of waiting. I made him promise to call me as soon as he got there, but he never did."

Juliet sighed. "How long ago was this?"

"Over two hours. It doesn't take that long to get anywhere in Santa Barbara."

"No, it doesn't," Juliet mused. "But I can't do anything officially for 46 more hours."

"We can't take a chance that he's hurt somewhere!" Gus cut in. "Isn't this probable cause or something?"

Juliet hesitated. She wanted to make sure Shawn was all right, but it was true that she couldn't do anything officially for another couple of days.

"I called you because I thought you'd help." Gus sounded hurt. "I guess I was wrong."

"Wait, Gus. I'm off duty in another half hour. If you want to wait for me, I'll come pick you up and we can go check it out." She heard a sigh of relief from the other side.

Within an hour, Juliet's car pulled up to the warehouse to which Gus had directed her. Shawn's motorcycle was parked outside the building, and one of the doors was hanging open.

Juliet drew her gun and held it at the ready in front of her as she entered the doorway. Gus followed closely behind. They passed through the first room of the building without seeing anything out of the ordinary.

The stairs ran alongside the elevator shaft. As they exited the stairwell on the second story, Gus had a thought.

"Do you think he might be in the elevator."

"Why would he be there? Anyone can see this place is about to fall apart. The elevator is one of the most dangerous places here."

"Yeah, well, Shawn doesn't always choose the smartest way around things," Gus replied, walking over to the elevator. He looked through the opening, first up, then down. The car hung a few feet below his feet. Enough daylight filtered in that he could see the cable was frayed and about to snap. There was a hole in the top, but it was too dark inside for him to see if Shawn was in there.

"Juliet, do you have a flashlight?"

"Just this." She tossed him a small, pocket-sized one.

"Thanks."

Juliet came up beside him as he shone his light down the shaft. "Do you see anything?"

"No. There's a hole in the top of the elevator, but I can't get at a good angle to see."

"Here." Juliet tucked her gun into its holster and held her hand out for the flashlight. "If you steady me, I can lean out over the car and look."

Gus hesitated a moment, but, seeing the wisdom of her plan, surrendered the light and tentatively put his hands around her waist.

"Gus, you have to hold on tighter than that."

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Shawn didn't know how much time had passed before he opened his eyes again. It could have been a second, an hour, a day. All he knew was his leg still hurt. And that headache hadn't gone away yet.

A small beam of light cut through the darkness around him, and he blinked against the brightness. He could hear a couple of familiar voices above but couldn't place them with the correct owners.

His whole world was swaying, but he could see now that he was in an elevator car. It must be swinging slightly from the cable.

He knew he had to let them know where he was. Taking a deep breath, he called out. Well, he tried to call out, but it came out as more of a raspy cough. Hopefully it had done something, because he was feeling dizzy again.

"Did you hear that?" Juliet gasped.

"Yeah," Gus sounded grim. "I think that was Shawn."

She leaned a little farther into the shaft, then gasped again. "He's in there! Oh my … Shawn? Shawn! Can you hear me?"

There was no answer from the car.

"Shawn!" she called down. "Shawn, are you awake?"

A weak voice drifted up to them. "Yeah."

"It's Juliet, Shawn. Are you okay?"

A pause, then Shawn coughed. "Not really."

"Hang on; I'm going to call for help. Okay? Just stay put. Gus, get me out of here."

Gus pulled her back onto solid ground, immediately noticing her pale face. As she pulled out her phone, he ventured to ask, "Could you see how he is?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "He needs help as soon as it can get here." She pressed the phone to her ear.

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Shawn couldn't figure out why Jules' voice had changed as soon as her face came into view. He wasn't sure if he was just hearing things, but it definitely sounded like she got much more worried in that moment.

He decided not to lie there anymore if he could help it. They were going to try and get him out, but if he could do it himself, it would be easier for them.

One of his legs cooperated just fine when he tried to bring them underneath him, but the other felt like a dead weight. He couldn't move it, and the more he tried, the more pain shot through it and the dizzier he got.

As he tried to get up, his hand brushed against a hard object lying against the wall. It felt like a flashlight.

Then he remembered what he was doing in this elevator. He'd been investigating a case for the police.

Picking up the light, he hit the switch and it flickered to life. The light bounced off the far wall and back to him, blinding him momentarily. He pointed it upwards until his eyes adjusted.

"Shawn?" Gus' voice came down. "Is that you?"

"Yeah," he managed to call back. He wanted to say more but couldn't get the breath to utter more than monosyllables. His chest must have gotten hurt somehow when he fell.

Moving the flashlight around, he finally shone it at the floor. That was strange. He thought the floor had been brown wood. With a start, he realized why the floor was red.

The world started swaying again. He must have made the elevator car swing when he jerked in surprise.

Gus yelled, "Shawn, try not to move! The cable is so frayed, it looks like it'll break at any moment. Any added pressure will cause it to snap!"

"'kay," his friend called back.

"They're on their way," Juliet turned back to Gus. "I called Carlton, and he's going to call for an ambulance on his way."

"You need to call Shawn's dad, too."

"I did. He's on his way."

"He wasn't too happy, was he?"

"No, but I'm sure he's just worried."

"So, how was he when you looked in?" Gus asked. "I mean, was he hurt really badly?"

"Gus, I know how you are with stuff like this …"

"Just tell me!" he exclaimed. Taking a deep breath, he continued, "Sorry. I do want to know."

She took a deep breath. "Well … I couldn't see everything, but there was blood all over the floor."

"What?" "Yeah. And … it looked like there's a …"

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Shawn followed the blood with his light and nearly had a Gus moment when he reached his leg. His left shoe and pants leg were soaked in it. A little above his knee, he found the cause of the blood.

About an inch from the outside edge of his leg, a thin pipe protruded from the limb. He must have landed on it when he fell through the ceiling.

Well, now he knew why it hurt so badly.

He stopped and cocked his head at the creaking noise from above. _Please tell me that's not the wire._

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Gus saw Juliet's eyes widen even as the creaking reached his ears. He spun around to see the taut cable straining even more than before.

"Shawn!"

His cry hung in the air as the cable snapped and the car carrying his best friend crashed the rest of the way to the bottom of the shaft.

Juliet and Gus stood frozen in shock for a moment after the elevator car disappeared. Then it was as if someone flipped a switch; they both raced down the stairs to the floor below.

Dust swirled out of the shaft, obscuring their view at first. The fall wasn't extremely far – less than one story – but with the condition of the elevator it was far enough. The old wooden car lay in a smashed jumble at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

"Shawn! Shawn, can you hear me?" Gus called.

No answer.

"Don't touch anything, Gus," Juliet warned as he reached for the rubble. "You might cause it to shift and hurt Shawn even more."

Gus withdrew his hand. "I can't just stand here and do nothing!"

The wail of sirens outside interrupted Juliet's reply. Bright lights strobed through the windows and cracks in the walls. Several paramedics rushed in, followed by the SBPD's head detective.

Carlton Lassiter strode over to where Gus and Juliet stood. "All right, O'Hara. I want more details than you gave me on the phone, including why you came here in the first place."

One of the EMTs came up just then. "Excuse me, Detective Lassiter."

"Is everything all right?"

"You said there was someone in the elevator?"

"Yes."

"We're going to have to get a rescue team in here. There's no way we can get him out without the proper equipment."

Lassiter sighed. "All right, but hurry."

The man nodded and hurried away. Lassiter turned back to Juliet, his raised eyebrows indicating he still wanted an answer.

"Gus called me worried about Shawn. He'd had a vision or something about this place and wanted to check it out. It had been a couple of hours since Shawn left, and no one had heard from him, so I offered to come look things over."

"And you didn't think to tell anyone where you were going?"

"Carlton, it was on my own time. There was no reason for me to assume anything dangerous was going on, so why would I need to get backup?"

"Detective Lassiter! I want to know what's going on here!" Henry Spencer barged onto the scene.

Lassiter sighed and turned to the older man. "Well, sir, it appears your son is trapped in the elevator."

"He's what?" Henry whirled towards the shaft. "Oh man. Gus, what happened?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Spencer. I don't know –"

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I wasn't here. I was busy with something else, and Shawn came by himself. Juliet and I came when I didn't hear from him after two hours, and we found him trapped in the elevator. Right after we called for help, the cable broke."

"The cable broke? How far up was he?"

"Not even at the second story. But he was already injured, so I don't know what kind of damage was done," Juliet answered.

"What's being done to get him out?"

"There's a rescue team en route," Lassiter told him. "They'll get here as soon as possible. We just can't risk shifting that pile and hurting him anymore than he already is."

Henry walked over to the elevator. "Shawn? Can you hear me?"

There was no answer.

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Shawn woke to an even worse headache than before, if that was possible. And his leg wasn't the only thing that hurt anymore. He was lying face-up in the dark, and there was a crushing weight across his chest. It hurt like crazy to breathe. His leg felt like it was on fire, not to mention the rest of his body. He couldn't even pinpoint a certain place; everything was so painful.

He thought he could hear someone calling his name, and he tried to respond. Really he did. His voice caught in his throat and wouldn't exit his mouth.

Panting from even that little bit of exertion, Shawn allowed the darkness to overtake him once more.

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It seemed to be forever before the rescue team arrived. As soon as they did, they set right to work on the elevator.

Gus, Henry, Juliet, and Lassiter watched anxiously as the men painstakingly removed the rubble from the bottom of the shaft.

After a while, one of the rescue workers called for the paramedics to bring a stretcher over. There was hardly time for the onlookers to breathe a sigh of relief before Shawn was pulled from the debris and rushed to the waiting ambulance.

All four went pale at the sight of Shawn. His skin was dirty from the rubble – in the places it was visible, anyway. There was blood on a large portion of his face from a gash on his forehead. He had several bruises on his face and arms, and one arm was bent at an odd angle. But it was his leg that worried them the most. The pant leg, as well as his shoe, was soaked red, and there was a dark rip above his knee.

"Is he okay?" Henry demanded, following them to the ambulance.

"Are you his father?" one of the paramedics asked.

"Yes. Now answer my question. Is Shawn going to be all right?"

"We can't say yet, sir. We'll do our best, but we need to get him to the hospital as quickly as possible."

Henry insisted on accompanying them in the emergency vehicle, and the EMTs didn't object, so Gus drove Henry's truck to the hospital. Juliet and Lassiter were right behind them in their cars.

Shawn woke up once during the ride to the hospital, but he was out again before they reached it. He didn't wake up as he was rushed through the halls to surgery, and his dad and friends were left to pace the waiting room for the next few hours.

Shawn came to with a start. He'd been having an awful dream about being trapped in an elevator. Feeling the bed underneath his body, he sighed in relief. At least it was just a dream.

That sigh, however, quickly brought the memories to mind when his abdomen flared up in pain.

Henry had been dozing in the chair beside the bed but quickly jumped up when he heard his son groan. "Shawn, are you all right?"

"Yeah," he gasped weakly. "What – what happened?"

"You don't remember? You were in an old elevator."

"I meant … after the elevator dropped. I … don't really remember anything else."

Henry rubbed a hand across the top of his head. "You were lucky, kid. They said you could've been killed with all that happened. What were you doing there anyway?"

"Looking for a clue."

"Shawn, how many times do I have to tell you not to intentionally put yourself in danger to investigate a case? You should always have backup with you when you go into places like that warehouse."

"I know, I know … You've only told me a thousand times."

"Lot of good it's done you. You never pay attention. See, Shawn, this is why things like this happen to you. It's like you want them to."

"Believe me, Dad, I did not want this to happen."

"You know what, Shawn? I'm gonna go call Gus. He wanted me to as soon as you woke up. We'll discuss this later."

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Gus walked up the stairs to the hospital with a cup of coffee in each hand. He and Henry had been taking turns sitting by Shawn's bedside for the past two days. Each time Gus left, his friend was still unconscious. Each time he returned, he hoped he'd find his friend awake.

His phone rang. After a moment of juggling the cups, he finally gave up and hurried to the front desk. Setting down the coffee, he yanked his phone out of his pocket. When he saw Henry's name on the caller ID, he pushed the button down harder than he meant to.

"What's going on? Is Shawn all right?"

"Yes, Gus," Henry sounded better than he had in days. "He just woke up not that long ago."

"I'll be right there!" Gus forgot the cups on the counter and ran up to Shawn's room as quickly as possible. He entered the room a few minutes later.

"It's good to see you awake," Gus greeted his friend.

Shawn was sitting up in bed. "Hey, Gus."

"Where's your dad?" Gus looked around the small room.

"Oh, he had stuff to do," Shawn waved him off.

"Uh-huh. Shawn, did you two have a fight?"

"What makes you think that?" The look Shawn gave Gus was one of feigned innocence.

"Well, maybe because he's been by your side every moment he's been awake these past few days. And maybe because I know you both are two of the most stubborn people I know."

Shawn stayed silent for a moment, then changed the subject. "So, Gus, I need you to do something for me."

"What? Do you need something from your apartment?"

"No … Actually I was thinking more along the lines of going back to that warehouse and looking around some more. I didn't get to look around the whole place before I fell."

Gus shook his head. "Shawn, I am not going snoop around that warehouse for you. Look what happened to you when you did that."

"Oh, Gus, don't be a soggy graham cracker. Come on, I need you to do this for me."

"No, Shawn. Juliet and Lassiter are having some people search the place. They'll find anything out of place."

"You don't know that."

"Yes I do."

"No you don't."

"Yes I – You know what? I'm not having this conversation with you. I'll be back later." Gus turned on his heel and walked towards the door.

"Gus? Gus!" Shawn's calls followed him down the hall. "Gus!"


End file.
